


A Fair Fight

by jellybeanforest



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: A Bunch of Assholes, Caring Asshole Dads, Child Abuse, Combat Pragmatist Trope, Dad!Rocket, Dirty Tactics, F/M, Fat Shaming, First Kiss, Flashbacks, Friendly Sparring, Gen, GotG Kinkmeme Prompt, Interlude between Volume 1 and 2, RookerTrope Challenge, Sexual Harassment, Starmora, Yondad, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-26 21:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15672045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellybeanforest/pseuds/jellybeanforest
Summary: The Guardians know Peter is soft – too soft in fact – and one day, he’ll get one of them killed if they can’t train him up to fight on their level.They’re wrong of course.For the RookerTrope Challenge. Based on a LJ GotG Kinkmeme Prompt.





	A Fair Fight

**Author's Note:**

> In canon, Volume 2 takes place four months after Volume 1, and it is heavily implied that Peter doesn’t talk to or see Yondu between handing him the fake orb at the end of Volume 1 and being rescued from from Ego at the end of Volume 2. This fic is set between Volume 1 and 2 when Peter and Yondu don’t talk, the Guardians are not quite a cohesive family unit/team yet, and there is still plenty of friction between the team members. 
> 
> The LJ Kinkmeme Prompt is in the end note, but I used the Combat Pragmatist Trope for the RookerTrope Challenge. Trope Definition: A character who is defined by his or her willingness to do anything in a fight to win. These characters are characterized by an extensive knowledge of tactics others may consider “dirty” fighting or just by a willingness to use those tactics to achieve their goal, often against more “honorable” opponents.

“I am Groot!”

Rocket sighs wearily as he continues to water the potted sapling, sluicing him with a generous stream of water. “Yeah, well, soda will stunt your growth.”

Though rooted to the soil, Groot rebelliously shakes his entire body, splashing Rocket with a shower of droplets.

“Stop that!” Rocket sputters, reflexively turning away and holding up his arms to avoid the majority of the cast-off, then shakes his hands dry in turn. Groot giggles at the motion. To Rocket’s displeasure, Groot is growing more assertive of late, more vocal and impressionable to the behaviors of his makeshift family, particularly a certain Terran. Said Terran presently sits across the table, slurping from a brightly-colored can that had caught the child’s eye.

“Hey Quill, you mind not drinking that shit in front of Groot? He always wants whatever you have.”

“Oh, I got you,” Peter says, standing to lean over and pour some soda on Groot.

“Stop, you asshole!” Rocket slaps the can out of his hand, spilling the remainder of its contents on the table as it falls to the floor with a hollow clink and rolls towards Rocket’s hodgepodge pile of various parts and gadgets.

“What the hell, dude! I was just trying to be nice,” Peter states, affronted. “Sharing is caring.”

Peter grabs the nearest cloth, one of Rocket’s balled-up oily rags, to try to sop up the majority of the sticky liquid. It does nothing but darken the smears, leaving residual sticky grey liquid in its path. Too lazy to retrieve a cleaner towel, he leaves the greasy wet mess, soaked cloth and all, on the table to dry into tacky streaks.

“I am Groot,” Groot comments approvingly, licking spilled soda off his wooden arm and smiling. He bounces with happiness in his terracotta pot, his now split lower limbs almost free from the root. He will soon be mobile.

_Lovely._

“See, Groot likes it,” Peter says, indicating the small tree’s jittery dance.

“He don't know any better. That shit’s bad for his development,” Rocket points out, still visibly annoyed with Quill’s attempts to undermine his parental authority to Groot’s detriment.

Peter tut-tuts, wagging his finger in disapproval at Rocket’s snide demeanor. “Two Things: A – Language, Rocket! Or that kid will be cussing up a storm by the time he sprouts legs, and B – I’ll have you know, I drank lots of soda back in my day, and I turned out just fine.”

“I am Groot,” Groot nods in agreement.

“No! He ain't taller than me because of the soda, Groot. That’s just his species, but all that sugar is making him grow horizontal,” Rocket translates.

Peter is immediately defensive. “Are you saying I’m getting fat?” he asks incredulously.

Rocket shrugs. “Face it, Quill, you’re getting a little soft around the middle. I’m surprised you haven’t needed to let out your pants. Leather is an unforgiving material.”

Peter surreptitiously slips a thumb between his belt and stomach, frowning slightly when it turns out to be a little tighter than he remembers.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Rocket sounds smug.

“No!” Caught out, Peter immediately crosses his arms. “My weight is perfectly fine and attractive. When’s the last time any woman gave you the time of day?”

 _Of course that’s how Quill measures validation._ Rocket simply rolls his eyes. “You’re a bad influence, Quill.”

“Says the homicidal raccoon.”

“Don’t call me a raccoon!”

Rocket leaps towards Peter, claws out, landing on his shoulders intending to smack him about the head. Peter immediately bats him away to protect his face, but Rocket rebounds, squirreling up his arm to latch on to his back. Peter reaches behind to dislodge Rocket, who quickly relocates to other loci of attack to continue his assault. In his grappling with Rocket, Peter flails about, knocking knick-knacks and weaponry onto the floor from the surrounding piles and stacks. When he collides with the table, a potted Groot nearly crashes to the floor. He’s saved by Rocket at the last second, who jumps off Quill to catch him before he can fall. Groot giggles at their game, asking to go again in his peculiar dialect. Rocket carefully places him on the floor away from harm, but as he turns, Peter is on him again, having shamelessly taken the upper hand due to Rocket’s momentary distraction.

Drax and Gamora enter the kitchen as Peter and Rocket wrestle on the floor.

“I see that Quill is finally working out his sparring,” Drax says approvingly. Gamora sidesteps the duo on her way to the water dispenser.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Peter snaps at Drax from the floor, still sensitive about his weight.

Drax is as blunt as ever. “Only that we have lived together on this ship for two months and I have yet to see you work on your fighting prowess. You are already weak and fleshy, a liability on the field. You can’t even defeat the Rodent, and he’s a third your size.”

“I am not fleshy!” Peter protests.

“What you call me, you overgrown meathead?” Rocket growls, ready to pounce on Drax.

Drax draws his dual knives. “I welcome the challenge. Perhaps you will find me a more formidable adversary than poor Quill here. It’s not becoming of a true warrior to pick on one so pathetic.”

Peter is insulted. “Wait a minute… You think _Rocket_ is better in a fight than me?”

Having noticed the squalid state of the common area with various items strewn around and the drying sticky grey comingling of soda and grease on the table, Gamora points out, “Enough… Rocket, Drax, this ship is already a filthy sty without you both making it worse by breaking everything, and the last thing we need is for one of you to blow a hole in the hull, killing us all. What we should do is land somewhere and train off-ship… Help Quill develop his combat skills as a team.”

Peter looks affronted at their collective lack of faith in his abilities. “Pass!”

“Peter, if you do not practice, how are you expected to improve?” Gamora reasons.

“What are you talking about?” Peter says, clearly exasperated. “You and Drax may have mastered fancy swordplay, and Rocket may be great at building gadgets and weaponry to compensate for his–“

“Watch it, Quill,” Rocket warns.

“…stature,” Peter continues, “but none of you have what I bring to the table.”

“Dumb luck?” Rocket proposes.

“A complete lack of shame?” Drax adds.

“Your pelvic sorcery is hardly relevant in most situations,” Gamora says, standing akimbo, hands on her hips.

“What? No! Seriously, you guys are a bunch of assholes…” Peter grumbles, running his fingers through his hair. “Street smarts! The ability to improvise, to think on the fly. Admit it: we defeated Ronan because of me and my quick thinking and clearly awesome moves.”

Rocket forces a laugh. “You provided a distraction. A trained orloni wearing shiny pants and banging on a tambourine could have done the same.”

Quill’s nostrils flare in anger and annoyance as he takes a step towards his diminutive rival.

Gamora steps between them to keep them apart. “Save it for land, you two!” Then turning to Peter, she insists sensibly, “Peter, we have all been cooped up far too long in this ship. We need space to breathe and practice our skills as a team, which includes you.”

“Okay, fine!” Peter acquiesces. “But don’t come crying to me when you all end up flat on your asses.”

“Unlikely.” Rocket smirks, crossing his arms.

Drax is perplexed. “Why would I come crying to you? If you manage to defeat me, I will accept the result with grace and humility, and congratulate you on your victory,” he deadpans. “I, however, agree with Rocket. This is an unlikely outcome. Your chances of success are vanishingly small.”

Peter palms his face. “It’s just a figure of– you know what? Nevermind. Not important. I’ll set course for the nearest habitable planet.”

 

* * *

 

It’s not so much a planet as it is a moon, covered in a bright blue ocean filled with slithery eels and fatted fish feasting on each other and blooms of blue-green algae that gave off a vague bioluminescent glow and provided much of the atmospheric oxygen. Here and there are pockets of sparsely-terraformed land: rocky, craggy, and coppery, the color of iron rust, and pocked with short bristly shrubs. Presently, they land on a flat plateau and arrange loose rocks to mark the corners of their makeshift sparring ring.

It is unlike the Eclector, where Peter had first cut his teeth on his particular brand of combat under the tutelage of one Captain Yondu Udonta. _Yer a small brat, Quill. Small an’ breakable an’ if ya try to fight an opponent on their level, y’all end up dead, ya hear?_ Yondu had said when he examined his underdeveloped arms, poking the tender skin white then releasing to watch it flush back to pink as Peter struggled to escape his grip. Yondu had frowned at the lack of armored plates, sharp teeth, acidic saliva, or any overt defensive ability exhibited by the abducted Terran. In fact, he barely had to expend any effort at all to hold the boy steady. That didn’t bode well for the child’s continued survival. _Ya have ta work with what ya got, an’ what ya got ain’t much,_ he finally conceded.

“Okay Quill, you and me, no excuses,” Rocket declares as he squares off against his opponent, cracking the small knuckles of his paws to activate the electric devices formed to fit over his fingers. “First one to knock out his opponent or pin him to the count of four wins.”

Rocket launches himself at Peter, but anticipating the move, Peter steps back and holds his arms out in front of his face to prevent Rocket from latching on to his shoulders. Rocket clasps his outstretched arms, delivering a shock to his inner elbow then scrambling around to attack his back. Another shock to his side and stomach has Peter on the ground but still putting up a decent fight as he tries to use his superior size to pin down his crafty but lightweight adversary. However, Rocket is too fast, too nimble, for Peter to effectively do so. When Peter manages to neutralize his paws, Rocket kicks him away, flipping over to continue his barrage of blows.

Rocket almost has him before Peter suddenly becomes distracted by something on the sidelines. He cries out, “Groot, put that down!”

Rocket looks away towards Groot only to find him still potted and safely deposited on the floor. “Wha–“

Peter pins Rocket, one hand grasping his forearms behind his back while his other arm crushes him down across the shoulders.

“Gotcha!”

 _Quill, yer Walkbox’s gone missing!_ Yondu had exclaimed while looking past the boy, when Peter, beaten and bruised, had managed to fend off his last three strikes with the blocks his mentor had taught him. _What!_ Peter had turned towards his pile of possessions, panic bubbling in his chest, only to spot the Walkman bundled carefully in his shirt as Yondu brought the flat of his hand hard across his face. Peter had backed up quickly, hand on stinging cheek. _That’s not fair, Yondu,_ he had protested. Yondu lunged forward to continue his assault. _Know yer opponent’s weaknesses an’ exploit the shit out’a ‘em. Mislead, lie, I don’t give a fuck, just survive an' live ta fight another day._

“Stars dammit, Quill! Using Groot is a dirty move!” Rocket complains when Peter finally lets him up after a good minute of gloating while he had him pinned long after the countdown had expired.

“Doesn’t matter. I still won,” Peter says, subdued laughter in his tone.

Gamora holds Rocket back from leaping towards Quill headfirst into his abdomen to prematurely kickstart round two as Drax steps forward.

“You fight with no honor!” Drax declares, removing his knives from the twin sheaths on his calves and setting them aside.

Peter shrugs. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“The practicality of your ruse does not diminish its malfeasance. I shall not fail to best you in combat,” Drax says as he takes his position, body angled, knees bent, fists up and out.

“No knives?”

“You are unarmed. I shall defeat you on equal footing.”

Peter supposes that’s fair on Drax’s part. Too bad he can’t promise him the same courtesy.

It’s obvious that he’s no match for Drax in terms of pure physicality. The man is tall like Peter but dense, every square inch of his body hard-packed with bulging muscles. Drax initially has the upper hand. Even when Peter lands his punches, they barely have any effect on his hulking opponent. Blocking Drax’s punches is equally ineffective as his glancing blows cause Peter’s arms to ache and bruise, so he attempts to dodge him instead, but Drax picks him up and tosses him clear across the makeshift ring like a ragdoll then advances on him to finish the job.

 _Use everythin’ in the environment to yer advantage,_ a voice that sounds like Yondu whispers to him.

Peter flips over to face his adversary, scooting backwards to create space between them. Scrabbling against the ground, he quickly collects a handful of sand and throws it into an unsuspecting Drax’s eyes.

Drax bellows in pain and surprise as he tries and fails to dust off his eyes. Taking advantage of his temporary incapacitation, Peter swipes his feet out from under him, and practically lays across his chest, frantically trying to concentrate as much weight as possible to force him down for Rocket’s count of four.

“You only won due to trickery,” Drax grouses later. He’s seated on the ground while Rocket stands to carefully pour a stream of water in his eyes to flush out any remaining debris. “In a fair fight, I would have emerged victorious.”

“In a real fight, you would have been dead,” Peter counters. “I won, and that’s all that matters.”

“If I had known those were the rules, I would have used my shock knuckles,” Rocket comments off-handedly, depositing the canteen on the ground next to Drax.

“You did use your shock knuckles!” Peter argues.

“Well, I would have turned them up to high!”

Before the situation can devolve further, Gamora calls out from the middle of the ring, “My turn!”

_Damn it._

When Peter moves to stand across from her, she slips wordlessly into her starting fighting stance.

“Are you sure you want a piece of this, Gamora? You can always concede now, and save yourself the embarrassment of losing to me,” Peter says, quickly evaluating his options. Distraction won’t work. She’ll be expecting sand and other environmental projectiles. He’s not willing to do any permanent damage, so eye gouging is out as well, and he’s not nearly delusional enough to believe he can actually beat her in fair hand-to-hand combat. Considering all factors, many paths to a successful outcome were closed to him when it came to Gamora.

Save one.

When he hatches the idea, his mind immediately rebels against it. It’s the most effective plan of attack, but it’s lower than he’d prefer to go with her. It could potentially damage the tenuous, painstakingly-slow trust between them, but–

It’s perfect.

After all–

 _Take any cheap shot you can git,_ Yondu had urged him. _Opponent’s bigger’an you? Stronger? Has weapons? Tough shit, kid. Ya don’t git far in life claimin’ fairness. Only shit what matters is what works._

They begin: attack, block, parry, but on one of Gamora’s missed strikes, Peter fluidly uses her momentum to pull her close with one hand while sliding the other down her waist to cup her ass. Surprised, Gamora is momentarily taken aback before she stomps down hard on Peter’s foot then up to knee his groin. He lets go but manages to stay standing due to his pants’ sewn-in cup taking the brunt of the force, saving him from ending up a wheezing mess on the floor.

Gamora backs up several steps, eyes narrowed in anger, but otherwise calm and quiet. He advances on her, easily blocking an ill-aimed kick but missing the forceful open-palmed smack to his ear. His head ringing with pain and his balance compromised, Gamora drops low, swiping out her leg to take Peter down then rounding on him to sit on his chest, pinning down his upper body with her thighs.

“1…” Drax drones from the sidelines like a metronome.

“Gamora, baby… not in front of the guys…” Peter manages a salacious tone, as he strokes her outer thigh closest to his hand. She instinctively shifts her weight away from the unexpected touch, and he takes advantage of the transition to tip her off his body. She flips into a roll then rises as he does.

Peter dusts himself off. “Well, if you insist–“

Incensed, Gamora quickly slips into his personal space, fist hurtling towards his throat. He abruptly veers back and to the side to avoid the strike, but she slips her foot behind him, hooking his ankles to take him down yet again. When she pins him curled over his prone body like a spider, her hand holds down one of his arms while she crushes the other under her opposite foot.

“1…”

“That’s my girl,” Peter pants, wriggling from under her hold.

“2…”

“Don’t you ever shut up?” She bites out, grinding her boot into his arm to stay him. When he winces and cries out in pain, she instinctively lets up slightly. He exploits her small mercy to flip them both onto her back.

“1…”

“Why don’t you make me?” He says, breath fast and labored with exertion, his face inches from her own.

A defiant look flits across Gamora’s face. It’s the only warning Peter gets before she lifts her head to close the distance between them, planting her lips softly against Peter’s own. Caught off guard, he is easily toppled, as Gamora slips his grip and thows him on to his stomach, hand wrenched behind his back, to press his face firmly into the dirt.

When Drax makes it to four, she lets go, planting a boot on Peter’s back to push him down then standing gracefully to the side, arms crossed and gazing downward at her vanquished opponent.

He plants his hands in the dirt to gingerly lift off the ground and rolls over to sit, elbows on raised knees.

“That was a dirty move,” he complains rather hypocritically as he ruffles the hair on the side of his head to shake out the accumulated dust. He looks up plaintively at Gamora, but if he was expecting sympathy, he is sorely disappointed.

“You aren’t the only one who was taught to exploit every advantage in battle,” Gamora states, coolly. “Besides, you said it yourself, Peter. All that matters is victory.”

“Is it over?” Rocket asks blandly, squinting his eyes closed and breathing sharply into one paw.

“Yes, Gamora has bested Quill,” Drax replies, “A true race towards the bottom of the rules of engagement.”

“Thank fuck! I thought they were going to rut right there out in the open like animals. Disgusting.”

 

* * *

 

Later that night, after he thinks the others have gone to bed, Peter sits in front of the radio, toying with the touchscreen, finger hovering over the contacts list. He wonders (and not for the first time) whether Yondu was still upset with him over the Troll doll he had secreted away in the decoy orb. He could well imagine the fallout. Yondu would have raged, perhaps destroyed half the trinkets in his cabin, screaming obscenities, calling Peter every name in the book including a few new ones he made up on the spot, and threatening to extract the price from his sorry hide. It was a miracle he hadn’t yet attempted to track Peter down in order to set an example for the crew. Of course, Peter had tried to keep a low-ish profile and ignored all follow-up calls from his former mentor in the weeks following the swap until they dwindled to nothing a month post-Xandar. He hopes Yondu discovered his ruse before he tried to sell it to a dangerous buyer, but considering he hadn’t heard news of the death of the wily Ravager Captain, he supposes he did. Yondu was too smart to not check the orb’s contents before he negotiated the sale.

Still, it might be nice to call him up to see how he’s doing. And while he’s at it, perhaps thank him for teaching him how to survive, for essentially raising him.

“Can’t sleep?” Gamora says, surprising him from behind.

Peter startles then abruptly turns off the touchscreen. He feels guilty even though he knows he shouldn’t, so he resorts to his default setting: deny and deflect attention away from himself.

“You know, if you wanted to kiss me, you could have just asked. You didn’t need to go to all that trouble,” he begins, folding his arms behind his head and leaning back to gaze at Gamora upside down. He keeps his demeanor light and easy, comfortable, as always.

Gamora scoffs, “Oh please. That was just a distraction.”

“See! It _is_ a viable strategy!”

“It does have its place… sometimes,” she admits.

When Peter rights himself, he glances at the radio, thoughtfully tapping his fingers across the comm control.

“Do you miss him?” Gamora asks.

“No,” he half-lies, then corrects, “I mean… who?”

She sighs, “He wasn’t your father.”

He knows it’s useless to pretend now. “I know, but it wasn’t all bad. Sometimes…”

Sometimes, he thought Yondu might have cared. When Yondu checked in on him when he was sick or looked at him with something akin to pride whenever he did something right, Peter could almost pretend he gave a shit about him beyond what he could earn for his coffers. He wasn’t sure how to reconcile those feelings with the beatings carried out under the guise of training, the frequent threats of cannibalism, the casual disregard for Peter’s wellbeing and general happiness. He supposes it’s because he never had a dad to compare his mentor to, and his deep desire for a father who loved him was simply projected onto the closest male role model he had at the time. He knew all that, yet–

His fingers still itch for the call switch. Even if it hadn’t been programmed into the Milano’s contacts, he knew the radio frequency by heart.

Gamora lays her hand over his own, enveloping it in soft warmth, to let him know she _understands_. She understands what it’s like to be of two minds, to both love and hate the monster who abducted and raised her.

“Peter… If they cared about us, they wouldn’t have terrorized us like they did,” she says, soft and gentle. Peter gazes at their conjoined hands, and for once, he is speechless.

He changes the subject. “Hey, so… about all that stuff I said and did earlier when we were sparring, I’m sorry. I wanted to win, but that wasn’t the way to go about it.”

Gamora simply nods. There’s silence, then: “Apology accepted.”

“So… it’s getting late,” Peter hints.

Gamora withdraws her hand and turns to leave. “Don’t stay up too much longer. Goodnight Peter.”

“Goodnight Gamora.”

When she’s gone, Peter contemplates the radio yet again.

He can’t call Yondu… at least not now. Maybe in a year or so, when Yondu has had time to calm down, Peter may re-visit the issue, or who knows? Perhaps their paths will cross even earlier than that. The Guardians occasionally ran in the same extra-legal circles as the Ravagers, so it was possible.

Peter heaves himself off the chair and with a final glance at the comm, heads towards his bunk.

 _Next time,_ he promises himself, as if another opportunity was inevitable.

Next time Peter sees Yondu’s ugly mug, he should be able to fend him off long enough to say thank you using the same dirty tricks the man had taught him.

And if Yondu sees it his way, perhaps that alone will be thanks enough.

**Author's Note:**

> LJ GotG Kinkmeme Prompt in Full: 
> 
> The Team expects Peter to be the weakest in spar sessions...But find themselves proved very wrong. 
> 
> The team all spar regularly to keep themselves in shape, but Peter never joins in. Always "too busy" or "I'm flying the ship" or "Nah not in the mood" until one day Gamora snaps at him that he has to keep up or he'll be a hindrance on the field. 
> 
> So Peter shrugs and joins in, and one by one puts each member of the team flat on their backs. He fights dirty, cheats a little, which is annoying but obviously effective. 
> 
> Bonus for the fight with Gamora ending in a tie, because neither will give up trying to hold the other down.


End file.
